Insurance company plans 1,000 more jobs in Lansing

LANSING (AP) -- Buoyed by a year of record profits, a Michigan insurance company said Tuesday it is planning a $100 million expansion that could lead to the addition of more than 1,000 jobs at its headquarters.

Lansing-based Jackson National Life Insurance Co. said it is running out of space after adding more than 150 employees to its 2,100-member Lansing workforce in 2012. Since the insurer's headquarters was built in 2000, its workforce has doubled.

Jackson President and CEO Michael Wells said the company decided to expand in Lansing because of its proximity to universities and larger metropolitan areas -- crucial to recruitment efforts -- and because it has called mid-Michigan home for 52 years. The area also is the base for other insurance companies.

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Robert Trezise Jr., head of the Lansing Economic Area Partnership, credited a 2008 tax-sharing agreement between Lansing and Alaiedon Township as setting the groundwork for the expansion because Jackson is exempted from some property taxes.

The announcement brought both Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and his 2010 Democratic opponent, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, to the same stage.

"By growing a business, by doing it well, by treating your customers right, you continue to grow," Snyder told hundreds of employees gathered in the company's atrium.

"Somebody pinch me," Bernero said of the planned investment and job creation.

Tax and other state and local incentives were still being finalized and were not publicly disclosed. Neither was the salary range for the new jobs, though Wells said the company has been hiring more and more information-technology specialists for good-paying jobs.

Jackson reported net income of $992 million in 2012, a more than $400 million increase driven primarily by higher fee income from variable annuities. The company also has employees in Denver and Nashville, Tenn.

Jackson officials said they want to build a 260,000-square-foot addition adjacent to the headquarters along with an 80,000-square foot data imaging center.